Audio 4:20
Beijing's sky high pollution problem

China's wired population pushes for the issue of pollution to be addressed at this year's annual parliamentary session, the National People's Congress.

Transcript

ELIZABETH JACKSON: China's annual full session of parliament is in full swing with the country set to witness the completion of a historic power transfer next weekend.

One of the key issues that has been repeatedly raised over the past week has been pollution.

It's an issue that has come under renewed scrutiny - a push that's being driven by a growing outcry from within the country's wired population.

Huey Fern Tay reports from Beijing.

JOSHUA FRANK: This is Beijing seen from a kite, cloaked in a thick grey haze...

HUEY FERN TAY: The kite enthusiasts of Beijing often congregate near one of the few ancient city walls that remain.

JOSHUA FRANK: Beijing is also now a city of more than six million cars...

HUEY FERN TAY: Last summer around 15 of them released kites that not only illuminated the capital's evening sky but also captured and relayed information about the air quality in that area.

These kites had sensors that they had installed under the guidance of two American graduate students.

They roped in New York-based filmmaker Joshua Frank to chronicle their efforts.

JOSHUA FRANK: The sensors that people built and mounted on kites also had small lights on them.

Those lights would reflect, you know, the presence and concentration of various pollutants depending on the sensors.

So if it was a carbon monoxide sensor and there happened to be a lot of carbon monoxide in the air, the light would be bright yellow or red, whereas if there was less of that pollutant, it would be green.

HUEY FERN TAY: The air data collected reportedly contradicted official statistics about air quality.

But while some may question the sophistication of citizen science, as projects like these are called, what's certain is that advancements in technology and social media are helping more people have a say in the environment they live in.

Filmmaker Joshua Frank noticed the difference when he lived in Beijing for a few years.

JOSHUA FRANK: You started to hear about people who were purchasing their own air quality sensors or you know perhaps pooling their money together to buy one.

So it struck me that there was a kind of interesting moment of more people starting to want to have information collected by themselves for themselves in their particular local environment, not necessarily relying on government figures.

HUEY FERN TAY: Dialogue over the perennial issue of pollution in China, be it air or water, has arguably been driven by the internet, and more specifically, Weibo, China's version of Twitter.

Chinese people now know just how dirty the skies and the water is in their country, although detail on soil pollution is apparently still classified as a 'state secret'.

In the lead up to the start of this year's annual parliamentary session, the National People's Congress, one of China's state-run newspapers, the Global Times, even published a map showing the distribution of so-called 'cancer villages' after the Environment Ministry's surprising acknowledgement.

The new spokesperson of the NPC, Fu Ying, also revealed how the problem had affected her when she was asked before the start of the NPC about what else the government would be doing to tackle pollution.

(Fu Ying speaking)

"I'm personally very concerned about this issue", she said.

"Every morning when I wake up, the first thing I do is to draw open the curtains to see if it's hazy outside. I also have two face masks - one for myself and one for my daughter."

"She has never used it before. I hope you don't photograph me wearing it!"

As I write this report, a grey smog is hanging over the city once again.

A quick check on my smart phone shows that air quality levels, as measured by both the Chinese government and the US embassy in Beijing, have in fact improved since the start of the day.

The classification is different even though the figures are close.

But at least both measurements are being done according to the same criteria. And that's something that wasn't possible up until a year ago.